How do archaeologists trace socio-economic differences in Harappan society? What are the differences that they notice?
Or
Describe how artefacts help in identifying social differences during the Harappan period.
1. Archaeologists trace socio-economic differences in Harappan society by adopting the following methods and techniques:
1. Burials. a. Difference in burial pits.
b. Presence of artefacts in the burial.
Archaeologist have found out that in Burials
a. There is difference in burial pits, some are just hollowed out space whereas others are lined with bricks.
b. Although Harappans rarely buried precious material along with their death one, however some graves did contain pottery, ornaments, jewellery which were made of semi precious stones.
2. Availability of Luxury goods.
Archaeologists assume objects to be luxuries if they are rare or made from costly, non-local materials or with complicated technologies.
Archaeologist have noticed that,
a. Larger settlements like Harappa and Mohenjodaro has large concerntration of Luxury goods whereas smaller settlements like kalibangan etc did not.
List the items of food available to people in Harappan cities. Indentify the groups who would have provided these.
I. The following items of food were available to the people in Harappan cities:
1. Grains such as wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea and sesame, Millets (found from sites in Gujarat), Rice (although its find is very rare). etc.
2. Meat of cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo, pig.
3. Meat of wild species like deer, boar, gharial etc.
4. Plants and their products.
II. Identification of groups who would have provided the items of food:
1. Farmers would have provided the grains.
2. As cattle , sheep, goat, buffalo etc were domesticated Harappans themselves would have provided the meat.
3. Regarding the meat of wild species of animals we are not sure how Harappans procured it but we can guess that it could be either hunting communities or most probably some of the Harappans themselves hunted the different animals.
4. For plants and their products Harappan themselves would have gathered it.
Look at following fig. and describe what you see. How is the body placed? What are the objects placed near it? Are there any artefacts on the body? Do these indicate the sex of the skeleton?
Fig. A Harappan Burial
By looking at the figure we can see that
1. Body is laid in the pit facing right side but i am unsure whether the pit is lined with bricks or without it.
2. We can see that there are certain artefacts along with the death one. Mostly potteries of varied shapes.
3. In the figure I cannot see any artefacts on the body. As it has been found out that Harappans rarely buried precious materials along with the death ones.
4. By looking at the skeleton and the way it is buried it is hard to identify the sex of it.
Would you agree that the drainage system in Harappan cities indicates town planning? Give reasons for your answer.
I do agree that drainage system in the Harappan cities indicates town planning because
1. It appears that drainage were laid first and then houses were built along it. Because we see that houses in the settlements were built on the platform as a base. And once the platforms were in place, all building activity within the city was restricted to a fixed area on the platforms, indicating signs of town planning.
2. We find that drain of each house were connected with main street drain and it had a soakpit so that only water could flow from it and collect the sediments. And it was covered with stone slabs and at regular interval it has holes for inspection.
3. We also find that the bricks that were used to built the drain and the houses whether sun-dried or baked, were of a standardised ratio, where the length and breadth were four times and twice the height respectively. Such bricks were used at all Harappan settlements.
Thus clearly pointing out that Harappan cities were properly planned and built.
List the material used to make beads in the Harappan Civilisation. Describe the process by which one kind of bead was made.
A large variety of material were used to make beads. It included red colour stone like carnelian, jasper, crystal, quartz and steatite. Besides copper, bronze, gold, shell, faience, terracota or burnt clay was also used.
The Process of Making Beads differed according to the materials. It had the following stages:
(i) First, Giving shapes to the beads, the process differed with the materials for example steatite being soft material was easily worked.
(ii) Second phase- in this process colour was given to the beads, for example redness of Carnelian was obtained by firing the yellowish raw material and beads at various stages of productions.
(iii) Third phase- Nodules were chipped into rough shapes and then they were finely flaked into the final form.
(iv) The last phase of the process included grinding, polishing and drilling. The specialised drills have been found at many sites like Chanhudaro, Lothal and Dholavira.
Switch
